Back when I was working on GOV.UK Verify we had URLs that looked something like /verify-passport for English and /cy/verify-passport for Welsh. I made the decision that if readable URLs was a design goal they should be readable in both languages, and ended up localising them all to (for example) /verify-passport and /gwirio-pasbort. No idea if anyone ever noticed, but sometimes it’s nice to sweat the small stuff.
I had the same thought for a restaurant website that served multiple languages. I figured customers might glance at the URL when it's being shared, and appreciate it being in their language.
What do you do when the translated slug happens to be the same in multiple languages? I ended up still having the country code in the slug.
This is important to do, in my opinion. You should not assume that non-English-speaking users all understand a little bit of English. It also confers some SEO benefits.
That being said, if the URL has a language code (/en/), it would be good to change the language code manually, and still end up on the right page. Sometimes the language switcher is really well hidden. However a visible language switcher is even better.
Best time of my professional career, broadly (although there were obvious frustrations). I’d 100% recommend at least a couple-year stint at GDS if it’s an option, as it completely changes the way you think about a huge number of things.
